


Push + Pull

by Cipher21



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Musical References, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cipher21/pseuds/Cipher21
Summary: She's never been a stranger to darkness. Ever since she'd been born darkness had always been there, a comforting blanket when the world surrounding her became too much to take and a blissful solace whenever she desperately needed someone to talk to but always found herself alone. Darkness was her loyal friend and faithful lover, until she made the one mistake she'd vowed to never do: she fell in love. Except, he's unavailable. Except, he's got a fiancee. Except, to top it all off, somehow she's been roped into playing Maid of Honour at his freaking wedding. So yeah, she's no stranger to darkness. But she's going to learn that embracing the darkness when alone is not the same as the darkness embracing you. And now that darkness has called, well, she's gotta pay her dues. AU. A series of non-linear but interwoven snapshots.





	Push + Pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedroom Hymns: Florence + The Machine
> 
> _The beginning and the end of a mental breakdown._

It was as good a place to fall as any. 

Sure it was no queen-sized mattress, no soft down duvet with a thousand thread count silk sheets layered beneath dark slate covers.

But considering she’d bled all over the unmade duvet and had the fantastic misfortune of expelling copious amounts of alcohol and stomach acid onto the exposed mattress slightly after that, she was assuming the sheets she so longed for underneath were also spoiled.

So the bamboo mat on her hardwood floor would have to do. 

It was okay though. 

Fine, really. 

Not great. 

To be honest, it wasn’t much different than what she imagined the actual hardwood floor would feel like if she had to lie on that, but it was infinitely better than the plush carpet that covered the hallway outside. (Not that she thought she’d actually be able to make it out there if she had wanted.)

She wasn’t sure why she was so opposed to lying on the carpet outside versus the solid mat beneath her. If she were properly coherent she’d realize that it probably had something to do with the colour of the carpet, an off coral that brought comfort and yet went against every fiber of her being. 

Because coral hinted at lip gloss and lampshades, at warm summer afternoons on the beach with a towel splayed on top of the tide-worn sand. Afternoons that bleed into lantern-lit evenings stitched together by soft moonlight and the comforting heat of familiarity as you lean back into your lover’s arms. Coral was the world in rose-tinted glasses, the first bite of watermelon after a dip in the ocean, and the last vestiges of makeup that cling to a mother’s face before she kisses her baby goodnight. It was a rising heat, the cloying scent of honeysuckle and sage, the drowning gust of humidity from an open window on a rural road not unlike the gasp of anticipation right before the pressure of lips pressing against lips occurs.

Coral was Starfire; everything that she was not and all the other things she’d never known and would never dream to become. And she’d somewhat made peace with that, but not enough to die in its embrace. 

She shifted then, a silent cry slipping past her lips due to her misery, so that she was lying on her side instead of the somewhat awkward and uncomfortable slump she had fallen into after she lost the battle against gravity.

She noticed her vision getting blurry, but not enough that she couldn’t read the time from the cracked alarm clock on the floor beside her. The digital face was blinking at her, somehow still plugged in and keeping time even after it’s unfortunate tumble.

3:44AM, it read. 

Which meant that it’d been almost three hours. 

Three hours since the power had gone out. 

Two hours since she shattered. 

One hour since she’d lost control of the one thing she had vowed she would never lose control of.

Herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Things of Note:
> 
> The first line of each chapter is related to that respective chapter's title, with it being the first line of the song that each title is named after (or a variation of it). The name of the song and artist will be listed first thing in each chapter note for those curious. This is just something to help drive the story along while also presenting a fun challenge for me while writing. I may possibly take requests, so leave me a comment if you've got something in mind and I'll see what I can do, but I make no promises I'll be able to include yours as my muse does whatever my muse wants and is the most fickle creature EVER. 
> 
> (It's here where I should probably note that the story title, Push + Pull - July Talk, also has the first line of the song it's titled after, but is in fact the last line of the story summary as opposed to the first, as I was having an extremely difficult time finding a song with an appropriate first line AND an appropriate song title that would function as a suitable title for this story as well. But, I digress.)
> 
> The aim is for each chapter or snapshot to have a 500 word limit, and they'll be presented in a non-linear fashion, which means each chapter will jump from one period of time to another. Brackets following the title name will either say Before, During or After, referring to a point in time relative to the wedding which the plot revolves around. The hope is that the shortness of each chapter will mean I can post more frequently while also allowing for a faster means of driving the plot along, while the non-linear template allows me to write any part of the story and post it immediately, instead of having parts of the story written and then having to wait to post them just because I get a case of writer's block. (Again, I blame my muse if this unfortunate incident occurs.)
> 
> Other than that, I'll likely have some sort of short, one sentence description (which does not contribute to the word count) for each chapter to help guide you readers along for each snapshot. It should also be noted that I am Canadian and therefore use the Queen's English in terms of spelling (see: Maid of HONOUR). And with that in mind, I hope you enjoy the story!


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